B&F Sound System Down Under

All being well B&F sound system i.e. Steve & Dom (featuring Ranking Joe) will be flying out to NZ and Oz imminently. They are doing several appearances and media interviews whilst there to promote B&F live and direct for the first time in that continent. Good luck to them. For details of where they will be click here. This down under story reminds me of Milton (Jah Trinity) who packed up and left Gloucestershire for the sunnier climes of Oz, check out the Jah Trinity sound system website by clicking here.

UK house selling prices - free lookup online

Well we all like to know how much the neighbours sold their house for (don't we)? Well now you can very easily and quickly look at your locale (or others) and find out exactly when and for how much. They say its a free service but other sites charge for doing the same. I think there must be a catch but I can't see it just yet. Check it out -

Link

What one dance can do...

It seems that the underworld of guns and gangsters wrapped up in the world of Jamaican dancehall music knows no boundary between right and wrong. Gerald 'Bogle' Levy was gunned down on the 20th January for what appears to be a rift between his followers and followers of his dancehall rival John 'John Hype' Prendergast. Subsequently the whole situation escalated into a violent carnage. Full story click here. I am completely fed up of hearing about gun related crime. I urge everyone to get involved and try to persuade governments to do something about it, lets start by looking here.

Technology - get on the MEND

If you have ever been subject to theft of mobile equipment then you will know exactly how inconvenient that can be, loss of data especially. Anyway there is now a 'Mobile Equipment National Database' and another useful website called 'Immobilise' both seem to be heading in the right direction in the quest to make it harder for people to get away with this sort of crime. Check them out - click here for MEND and click here for IMMOBILISE. Click here to vaporise all the toerags who participate in such crimes (sorry that link was de-activated by the politically correct party, but we hope to re-engage it sometime in the future).

No Tsunami in Mare Street

Not even a micro-wave now, to find out more -

Link

It takes three to Peel-o

Says a lot about the man when his position is replaced by none less than three DJ's. John Peel always gave Reggae (especially new UK labels) a good airing on his show over the years. I remember going through phases of listening to Peel on and off purely to catch hold of his reggae offerings, although I must say some of what he played either side of it was completely unlistenable to my ears. So three DJ's will now take Peels time slot; Ras Kwame, Rob Da Bank (didn't he gig in Northern Ireland recently?) and Huw Stephens. Good luck to the three of them. Hope they take the legacy of John Peel to new and higher levels.

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Oh Carroll

I have been pondering on and off about my team being robbed at Old Trafford last night. What should have been a historic victory for Spurs was denied by only 3 people out of nearly 67,962. I have only one major complaint. I am not really surprised about what has happened I mean, ever since Sky threw money at football its been difficult to categorise it as a sport. But what Carroll did in that match concludes once and for all that Football is no longer a sport and he himself is not a sportsman. Football is now all about money, big business and dishonesty. Sportsman like behaviour and club loyalty is long gone.

Reel them in...

There have recently been quite a few postings on audio newsgroups stating that 'Quantegy' (formerly Ampex) have possibly closed the factory which makes analogue recording tape.

"Quantegy, Inc. has ceased operations pending restructuring. This is due to financial issues that have plagued the industry and Quantegy for some time. All employees are on lay off pending further notice," according to a brief press release issued by the company Friday. The Opelika plant, once employed some 1,800 workers, has recently filed Chapter 11 bankruptcy."

This could be catastrophic for the analogue recording world if something pheonix like does not rise from the ashes of this company.

Link

Ready AIM Fire...!

Back on the 24th of November I bought something called the AIM guide on cd-rom from a company called MCR Music who also do the unsigned guide. I'm not even going to do them the honour of providing links to their websites here as if you want to know more you can do the hard work on a search engine. However if you are thinking of making the same purchase you should know this much at least. The AIM guide has not been updated since 2002 and because of some ridiculous copy protection system without warning the cd-rom goes through some strange process of installing an old out of date version of acrobat reader before you are even given the chance to have a look at the guide (most irritating) if you cancel the install then you cannot get to see it at all.

The purchase was made online and the supplier despatched the cd-rom immediately with delivery the next day (great well done, this was the only good part of the purchase). When I contacted them about the problems I was having they denied ever knowing about such problems and said their copy worked fine. Only when I kicked up a fuss and demonstrated that I knew what I was talking about did they refer me back to the originators of the cd-rom who DID know about the problems and had to send me an additional 'tweaked' version of the guide so that I could view it without re-configuring my acrobat reader software back to a 2002 version.

Then the supplier failed to send me a vat invoice for the purchase. I politely requested by email twice and then telephoned them after both emails were completely ignored (each reminder roughly one week apart). Even though I was promised a copy by telephone that request was also subsequently ignored and no invoice arrived. In the end I had to revert to a rather aggressive email which was replied to within the hour and the missing invoice attached to the reply over a month after the original purchase. Caveat Emptor springs to mind...

Number One will soon be 1000

X-Factors 'Steve' has just become the 998th number one record since UK chart history began. Not that the charts have really meant much to anybody since the eclipse of CD over vinyl and sales of 'singles' diminished from millions to tens of thousands in number to achieve the coveted 'number one' spot. It could mean something real again soon if the download websites get their statistical reporting act together. Just think we might even get some real music back in the charts again...

What is thicker, driver or fog?

Succinct rant follows;

Rule 211
You MUST NOT use front or rear fog lights unless visibility is seriously reduced (see Rule 201) as they dazzle other road users and can obscure your brake lights. You MUST switch them off when visibility improves.
Law RVLR regs 25 & 27

Click here for the highway code website. Rant over!